I came across an interesting article in PC World describing Vista as the best Windows ever, then setting out a whole heap of reasons for not buying - yet. You can read the article by Mike Elgan here.
Mike makes some good points. But here's another set of reasons for not jumping into Vista too soon: There are still questions about Vista's support for older applications. This includes SPLat/PC, which is a 16-bit application. We have bought a copy of 32-bit Vista, and will be testing as soon as we can find time, but there have been quite solid reports that 64-bit versions of Vista definitely will not run 16-bit applications.
Now, SPLat/PC is not the only 16-bit application still being used in specialist areas. If you are using any special purpose technical software that has been out for several years, maybe in support of a PLC system or other equipment, it may be a 16-bit program. Quite possibly your livelihood depends on some such software. So be very wary about switching to Vista! Leave yourself a backwards path.
So what are we doing about it? Unfortunately, when I first wrote SPLat/PC nearly 12 years ago, we were on the tail end of the Windows 3.11 era. The language I used was/is Visual Basic 3 (VB3). That in itself would not be too bad. However, I built SPLat/PC around an editor tool and one or two other 16-bit components that simply have no equivalents in the 32-bit world. Because of that, to make SPLat/PC into a 32-bit application would require a total re-write, at a cost of maybe 8 weeks of my time (much more of somebody else's time, because I know the program so well). It simply isn't going to happen. (It's easy to see how one simple policy decision by a large company can kill a small company!)
What we are doing instead is much more radical: We are designing a totally new product range, provisionally named SPLatNG (we are Star Trek fans!). SPLatNG is probably at least 18 months away. It will build on all the great features of the current SPLat, but add a raft of new capabilities made possible by modern 32-bit microcontroller technology. More on that some other time.
Meanwhile, remember: Vista may be great but don't leap in without testing the water!
Comments (4)
You can use Virtual PC 2007 to run up to 4 operating systems. http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/virtualpc/overview.mspx
PS.
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Posted by Ian | March 17, 2007 5:45 PM
Posted on March 17, 2007 17:45
Post script March 22: I had a call yesterday from a customer in Brisbane. He wanted to know about Vista drivers for USB to serial adaptors. He bought a new laptop that just came with Vista, and Belkin told him that their USB adaptors won't have Vista drivers for 2 months. QED.
Posted by David Gibson | March 22, 2007 7:31 AM
Posted on March 22, 2007 07:31
Microsoft always says how the next version of Windows will be great and now the security will be what we said it would be on the last version, but it never is.
The new versions just bring change and $, not real function.
The best thing to would be to move from Windows.
Posted by David Smith | March 26, 2007 6:56 AM
Posted on March 26, 2007 06:56
As said above you can use VirtualPC or just use Linux. XP has been pretty good to us, so I cannot see a good reason to change until we are forced to, ie the critical software we use will no longer be supported under XP.
Developers should take note and start using compilers like Borlands which does a combo compile for Win32 and Linux.
Posted by Kim Pedersen | April 2, 2007 2:32 PM
Posted on April 2, 2007 14:32